ALYSSA SAMBERG—The homeless population in the City of Miami (the “City”) lived under the protection of the Pottinger Agreement (“Agreement”), a landmark federal consent decree hailed as “a gold standard” in civil litigation establishing protection for rights of the homeless, for 20 years until a federal judge dissolved the agreement in February 2019. On October […]
STEPHANIE ROBIN—On April 1, 2019, the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, ruled against a Missouri death row inmate who claimed that due to a rare disease, the lethal injection would cause him “severe pain and suffering.” Embed from Getty Images In Bucklew v. Precythe, Russell Bucklew, a convicted murderer sentenced to death, claimed that […]
I. Introduction ANGEL SANCHEZ & ANNEKE DUNBAR-GRONKE—During the November 2018 elections, Floridians overwhelmingly voted to pass Amendment 4, which historically repealed the 150-year-old Jim-Crow era practice of permanently stripping voting rights from those with felony convictions. The Amendment’s passage ensured that all individuals with felony convictions in Florida, except those convicted of murder or a […]
SOPHIA RUB—On December 6, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments for Gamble v. United States. The defendant, Gamble, called for the Court to revisit the constitutionality of the dual-sovereignty doctrine as a valid exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Embed from Getty Images The Fifth Amendment’s […]
ANABEL BLANCO—On Saturday, December 22, the U.S. government entered a partial shutdown after President Trump and Congress failed to reach an agreement to pass a spending bill—a proposed law that authorizes the expenditure of government funds. President Trump demanded that the bill include 5.6 billion dollars in border wall funding, something that democrats steadfastly oppose. […]
